


Forest Gods

by paradiamond



Category: A Discovery of Witches (TV)
Genre: AU just let them live, Diana POV, F/M, really AU after 1.05, she just doesn’t get snatched and they have a chill day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-04
Updated: 2018-11-04
Packaged: 2019-08-17 15:22:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,540
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16519052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paradiamond/pseuds/paradiamond
Summary: Given the opportunity, Diana and Matthew get to know each other at their own pace.





	Forest Gods

Diana had a sixth sense about people. 

This was maybe a bit obvious for a witch, and she wasn’t the only one, but even when she was at her most disconnected from her powers, she knew who she was seeing. 

She looked at Knox and saw an enemy. Immediately. A much as she pushed to ignore it at first, to play along, she always saw the snake in the grass. 

Gillian had inspired a sort of general unease, and had produced a proportional unassuming sort of betrayal. 

Matthew was a calm river, waiting for her. Hidden depths. Rapids. Hers. She looked at him and wanted to trust him, but she didn’t trust herself, so she pushed back until she realized she could listen to herself after all. 

The morning light softened him, compounding the effect of seeing him deeply asleep for the first time. Matthew had the tendency to make himself look like a background character of an old painting, all angular and inhumanly beautiful. Still. Now he was the subject, cast into life by the removal of his walls. Diana leaned over to kiss his shoulder, and he didn’t stir. 

Smirking, she pushed herself up and threw on her workout clothes, making for the door like a bandit. His rest was paradoxically wiring her with raw energy to burn, and today, running felt like flying, like discovering herself all over again. The push and pull of her muscles guided her heart, and she followed it all the way around the castle, the wind whipping her face. Twice. 

More than once, she saw a face peer down at her from a window, and raised a hand as she passed, smiling. Her new extended family. It was strange, like pouring water out of her soul or calling up an ancient book. Strange like love. She ran harder, pushing herself to her outer limits. 

There was going to come a time when she would have to fight, when the shadows would close in on all sides and she would have to use everything, her magic, her mind, her body, all to defend herself and those she loved. Running like this, she felt like she could. 

When it felt right, her feet dragged to a stop, kicking up gravel and sand. The beating of her heart was so loud Diana could hardly believe it hadn’t woken Matthew up, high above her in the tower. She panted, jogging in place a bit to slow herself down. She raised her arms above her head, stretching to the sky, then dropped them, letting out a big breath as she moved. It felt good. It felt free. 

***

Diana had only been sitting in the chair at the desk for a few minutes when she saw Matthew stir in bed, movement coming back to him in stages, starting at the tips of his fingers and drawing in. She watched, trying to breath slow and even, as he blinked, smiled, and reached for her, only to find her gone. She bit her lip.

He looked in her direction and smirked. “Well, how the tables have turned.” 

Diana’s facade broke immediately and she launched herself out of the chair and back into the bed. Matthew had his arms up to catch her in a flash, and she had the strangest sense of watching the moment from the outside, how graceful and lovely they must look, like a ballerina knowing that her partner will catch her on the stage, so confident and with every right. 

Matthew had no breath in him to rush out when she landed, but he gave her a twisted smile all the same. “Someone is wild this morning.” He leaned in to smell her hair. “You’ve been outside.” 

“Just around the grounds.” Diana wormed her way down in his grasp to stick herself to his side, burying her cold face in his shoulder. Now he did breathe deeply, she felt the moment of his chest, turning his face to rest his lips against the crown of her head. With anyone else, she would push it further, slide her hand down the broad plane of his chest and keep going. But she knew what he would say. 

He was teaching her patience in a trial by fire, building her up and then letting her gently back down again, over and over. No rush, he said, and still managed to be the best lover she’d ever had. The sting of rejection hadn’t bothered her since that first night. He hadn’t, she realized. Diana had just never been with someone she was sure of before. 

She popped her head back up. “Should we go for a walk today?” 

A slow smile curled over his face. “Eager to get back out there?” 

“I wasn’t out there,” Diana pushed herself up and out of the bed, making for the corner where she left her shoes. “I was inside the castle, like a good and proper lady.” 

Matthew laughed, boosting himself up on his elbows to watch her. “You have a way with twisting words, my dear.” 

Diana sent him a smile. “An academic is a wordsmith.” 

Matthew sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He looked delicious. “Who said that? Ah, you.” 

She shot him a look of mock-offense. “And a vampire is a punchline stealer.” 

“Guilty, but only of the glaring obvious ones.” 

“Ouch.”

“Forgive me.”

“Always,” Diana said, aware that he’d been joking. She wasn’t. Matthew looked at her in silence for several minutes. 

“Come here.” He held his arms out, and Diana willingly crossed the room to come stand in the circle they made when he cradled her close. 

***

All the beauty and wonder the countryside of France had to offer, and Matthew was staring at her. 

Diana smiled. “What?” 

He reached over and traced one of her braids. They’d been delayed in their pursuit of walk by food, a bath, and proper dress. “You look like your namesake, the huntress.” 

Diana arched an eyebrow at him. “The virgin.”

“Yes, and I take it that ship has sailed.” 

She smacked him in the arm, delighted. “If I’m a moon goddess, shouldn't you be the sun?”

Matthew shook his head. “Certainly not.”

She couldn’t stop smiling. “Why?”

“We’d never see each other!” He caught her by the elbow and pulled her in, giving up the pretense of their little hike. “Besides, I’m too lazy to work that hard.”

“Liar.”

“Exactly, the sun has to be honest, constant. I’m sorry love, but it just doesn’t fit.”

Diana hummed, pleased at the endearment. It was so sweet, so good to hear him give it out freely after he tried to deny her. She reached up and hooked her arms around his neck. “Well, you just copied my name back to me, so who was Matthew?”

He blinked at her. “You’re joking.”

“Kind of. I know he was a saint.”

His face split open in a smile. “No. Or rather, yes, he was, but that smacked of a guess.”

Diana shrugged. Her family were more acquainted with the phases of the moon than the pages of the Bible. 

“An apostle. A follower of Christ.”

She put on her most innocent expression. “Who I take it you also knew?”

He poked her in the side, making her drop her arms. “Heretic. Do you really not know this?”

“My aunts weren’t exactly Christians. And by not exactly I mean they were pagans.”

“Now, those I remember.”

“Remember!”

“Well, the old ones. You would be more New Age, as I understand it.” 

Diana rolled her eyes. Matthew caught her hand, pulling her back along the path. It was peaceful under the trees. Beautiful. But suddenly, though not for the first time, Diana had the sense that they were standing at the edge of this wide gulf of time and experience and opinion. 

Would he always think her a little ridiculous? 

“You know, to pagans this would be as close as we get to the church,” she said, to the trees. 

Matthew hummed, and when she risked a glance, he was looking up at the leaves too. It lit a light inside her, a warmth, and she stepped closer as they walked, letting herself feel all of it. All around them, the earth hummed with life. She felt so much more of it now that she was letting it in. The water under the ground, the wind in her hair, and her vampire, solid at her side. 

Diana was never one to go slow, but this was more than she ever dreamed. 

“Is it a spiritual feeling for you, being out here?” 

The wind chose that moment to rustle through the trees, setting off the rush in her blood. “In a way. Is it not for you? This is all God’s creation.” 

“That’s true.” Matthew tightened his grip on her hand and stopped walking. “I suppose in a way it’s more pure than anything we could ever build ourselves.” 

“Nature is exactly what it’s meant to be. There’s balance here, life and death.”

“Good and evil?”

Diana smirked and rolled up to the balls of her feet, bringing them closer. “I’m not sure I believe in good and evil.” 

Matthew raised an eyebrow at her. “No?”

“No.” A cloud rolled by overhead, briefly blocking out the light of the sun. “Practically speaking, good and evil don’t mean anything. They don’t tell you anything about the person you’re describing, and I think they could only ever be applied to people.” 

Matthew hummed, playing with her fingers. “So, you don’t think Knox is evil?” 

“No. Or if he is, that’s not all he is, and it’s not the most specific or useful way to describe him.” 

“I think ‘good’ might be the truest way to describe you, even if it isn’t the most useful.” 

Diana tilted her head. “Really?” 

“Yes.” He raised her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss there so light she could hardly feel it. “You think too much like a scientist, sometimes. Specific and useful aren’t the only categories worth considering.” 

“Too academic.” Diana turned her hand in his his, linking their fingers together. “Is it my weakness?” 

She knew what he was going to say before he said it, which is probably why he stayed quiet on the subject. Too proud to be predictable. The wind shifted, carrying Diana with it, and they continued up the path. 

***

“Wow.”

“I agree.” 

Diana looked over her shoulder to grin at him. They had made it to the top of the hill he had been leading them on for the better part of the morning, and it was just as magnificent as she had anticipated. The fields stretched out before them, with the town sitting quietly to the left, like a place out of time. Up here, Diana felt like that. A moment of quiet existence with her family, at peace with her surroundings. 

It was colder up on the hill, the air fresher. A hawk flew by, the sharp line of its wings catching the light and the wind at the same time, taking it higher and higher before it suddenly folded and shot down, hurtling towards the trees. Diana watched it, her heart in her throat, her soul rising and falling with the air, and completely failed to notice the she was following it up into the air until Matthew caught her hand. 

“Oh,” Diana laughed, and her feet hit the ground again. “Whoops.” 

Matthew made a show of rolling his eyes. “Unbelievable.” 

“I guess you’ll just have to hold me down,” Diana said, wrapping her arms around his waist. 

“If you think I haven’t been keeping your feet on the floor for the past several weeks, you haven’t been paying attention.” 

The space between them was warm, especially so compared to the air around them, blanketing them in. A breeze blew at Matthew’s back, ruffling his short hair, and he leaned down to press their foreheads together. The connection hit like an electric shock, taking Diana out of herself and straight into a memory of Matthew up here, alone, the difference in his clothes the only change in his appearance between now and what must be a far gone time. 

He looked out over the land with the air of a satisfied painter, a master of craft. He was very still. After what felt like a long time, he crossed himself, and turned away, heading back down the path. 

Diana blinked, and she was back with Matthew, now looking at her intently, his fingers tracing over her collarbone. “A vision?” 

She nodded. “Just you, up here, looking out at the village.” 

Matthew hummed. “That could have been one of a thousand times, all very the same.” 

Diana pressed her face into his hand. Until now. He inclined his head. 

“Do I look different? I assume you can tell I’m looking at something else.” 

“It’s not that they grow vague, like someone in a trance. It’s more like,” he hesitated, regarding her seriously. “It’s as though they become deep. Endlessly so. But they don’t lose their focus.”

“Good to know I don’t look crazy.” 

His mouth twitched. “I didn’t say that.” 

“Ha.” 

He dropped his hands. “Should we head back?”

“Probably.” Diana looked back out over the land, determined to commit it to memory. “Should we also finish our earlier conversation? We never settled on which God you are.” 

The corner of his mouth twitched. “Did we not?”

“No.” 

“I see, well, what do you think?”

“What do you think I think?” 

“Pluto?”

She raised her eyebrows. “God of death?” Surely he didn’t think of them as Hades and Persephone. 

“It would be fitting.”

“Superficially.” 

“I did choose yours based on your name, though I maintain that it works well.” 

“You’re probably right.” Diana kept searching the land, casting her mind outward. This was not her field, but she wasn’t ignorant of it, and she knew him. “What about Janus?”

Matthew made a sound like the ground shifting in his chest. “God of time?”

“Time, beginnings, gates, transitions, duality, endings.” Diana turned back to face him, bringing her hands up to trace along the structure of him, just like he did to her. The soft curve of his lips, the sharp pointed jag on his cheekbone. His skin was soft, softer than it looked. “Usually depicted as having two faces, since he looks to both the future and to the past.”

His eyes dropped to her mouth right before she kissed him, sliding their lips together. Matthew was teaching her patience, but she knew enough about magic to know that balance was key. When she ran her tongue along the seam of his lips, he opened for her. She would challenge him just as much as he did her. 

This time, she pulled away first, smiling up at him. When their eyes met, he gasped, his hand going to cup her neck. “You have stars in your eyes.” 

Her smile broadened. “For you.” She could feel them there, and in her hands, in her chest. 

The softness of his feelings poured out of him. He had starts in his eyes, too. “Home?”

“Yeah.” She took his hand. “Let’s go home.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! I just love them 
> 
> I'm at paradiamond.tumblr.com for more nonsense~


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